by K. J. Emrick
She munched on a piece of cantaloupe. “I’m not up to anything,” she lied.
“Yes, you are. You think I killed Joe.”
Well, that was blunt. Not to mention true. She wasn’t going to get away from Jayce, obviously, so setting her plate aside she folded her hands on the table. “What I think, is that you spent time in a prison in Northern New York.”
He nodded, lifting a finger and letting it drop again. “Clinton County Correctional. In Dannemora. Got this huge wall around the whole place. Kinda scary.”
“Right. Joseph also spent some time there.”
Jayce pursed his lips. “Well, and here I thought that boyfriend of yours was the detective in the family.”
“He’s a police officer, actually.”
“Which makes him not my favorite people.” Sitting back in his chair Jayce hooked an arm over the back. “So, me and Joe both did time in prison. So what?”
“In the same prison,” Cookie amended. “This Dannemora place.”
“Uh-huh. So tell me, lady detective, what do you deduce from that?”
Cookie knew she should get up and walk away, go find Jerry, and have him take care of this. That’s what she should do, but it wasn’t what she did. Maybe she was just too stubborn, she thought to herself, or maybe this arrogant man with his cocky swagger was pushing all of her buttons. Either way he was here now and she wasn’t going to get a better chance to ask him her questions.
“I think you and Joseph spent time together in that prison,” she said. “I think you knew him before the two of you got on this boat together.”
Now his smile came out for real. All teeth, like he was amused. “So what if I did, lady? You think me knowing someone from my bad boy days means I killed him?”
Yes, she almost told him. That was exactly what she was thinking, but she also had a feeling she had reached the end of her luck with Jayce. He might not be as young as he once was, and he might not steal cars for thrills anymore, but she could see in his face that he was still bad-tempered and ready to go off at any moment.
So instead, she turned the question back on him. “Why don’t you tell me? Where did you go when you left our table at the reception?”
He looked surprised for a moment. Why, Cookie asked herself, did everyone assume that just because she was a small town baker that she couldn’t think for herself? She was smart as a whip, thank you very much.
“Heh.” He actually chuckled, staring down at that eagle ring on his pinky. “Well, to tell the truth, I left the table because of our boy Joe.”
Cookie’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Was he confessing?
“See, you were right,” he told her. “At least, a little bit. Yes, I did know Joe from prison. We weren’t the best of friends, but we were in there at the same time. We both worked in the library for a few weeks together. He ever tell you guys that? No. Of course he didn’t. When he got out he got to pretend none of that ever happened, I bet. Probably didn’t even tell his wife, did he?”
“Actually, yes he did.” Cookie said defensively. She felt a little sliver of pride for Joseph. He hadn’t tried to hide who he was from Madison. Maybe he’d kept his secrets from the rest of the world, but that was a man’s prerogative, wasn’t it? “His wife knew what he had done, and loved him anyway.”
“Well good for her. I wasn’t that lucky.” He leaned forward now, crowding toward her from the other side of the table. “I think Jessica told you about me beating up a guy and going back inside?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “She did. I don’t call it bad luck when someone starts a fistfight. Sounds like you have a bit of a temper.”
He shrugged as if that didn’t matter. “That’s the way my life goes. Other guys get away with everything. I get caught if I jaywalk. So right there should be your first clue that I didn’t do this. I’d be in handcuffs already. Sure, I’ve done bad things in my life. But I’ve paid my dues for each and every one. Besides, why would I want to kill Joe? It’s not like we even knew each other so well.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Excuse me?” His eyebrows shot up. “Don’t pretend to know me, lady.”
“Oh, I think I know you very well. At least, I know your kind. That’s not what I meant, though. I mean that I can tell you knew Joseph pretty well. At least well enough that you’ve been calling him Joe this whole time.”
The comment hit its mark. Jayce sat very still for a moment, his hands frozen in midair with whatever lie he had been about to tell. He was caught, and he knew it. He knew Joseph. There was a connection.
Then his fingers began to shake. His brown eyes narrowed and his jaw flexed. “You…” he snarled. “You just drop this, or so help me God, lady, you’ll regret it.”
Pushing himself up from the table he spun on his heel and rushed out of the room, nearly running over a couple coming from the buffet line with plates loaded down with scrambled eggs and spare ribs.
Well, Cookie thought. What do you know?
Cookie gave herself a moment for her heart to stop hammering. Then she took a few more bites of her pancakes before her appetite left her entirely. In one of the heavy cloth napkins from the table she wrapped up the strips of bacon to take with her and then dumped the rest of her breakfast in one of the large garbage bins at the far end of the room. She hated to waste food, but she wasn’t going to eat anything else. Not now. Not when her head was full of hints and clues and what-ifs.
So Joseph and Jayce had spent time together in prison. Minor crimes for Joseph, somewhat more serious ones for Jayce, but it had been enough for the two men to cross paths. Jayce had lied about how well he knew Joseph. Which meant he was hiding something.
The motive for the murder, perhaps?
Cookie went straight back to her state room. On her way she saw several of the crew but was there really any point in asking them where the captain was? If she got the same sort of response that she’d gotten earlier, it would be a total waste of time. She might trip over him quicker than anyone who worked onboard could find him.
Once again, she had to walk past couples holding hands and taking leisurely strolls around the ship. Cookie wished that she was on the upper decks with Jerry, arm in arm, having a romantic moment together. She’d been hoping they would get to enjoy each other’s company on this trip, but that was becoming more and more unlikely. He’d been distant, and hard to communicate with, and now he had this investigation to take up his time.
Of course, she was investigating Joseph’s murder now, too. Against Jerry’s wishes. What could have been a bonding moment for them was becoming a wedge driven between them. She didn’t like being at odds with Jerry. They had been so in love at the start, and it had taken her so long to trust him and open her heart to him. Now… she was starting to see they might not be forever after all.
Sad thoughts. This entire trip seemed to be made up of sad thoughts.
Fitting the cardkey into the electronic lock of her cabin Cookie prepared herself for the jumping and the barking that was an excitable little fur ball showing her how happy he was to see her coming back to him. Well. If she was going to be stuck on a ship where everything was going wrong, at least she could be stuck here with her best friend.
“Here you go,” she said to him as he pranced around her feet. “A little bacon.”
She dropped him half a piece, and he began eagerly grabbing it between his front paws and chewing on it.
“Not too much now,” she warned him. “We don’t want you getting high cholesterol.”
Then she bit into one of the chewy strips herself. She remembered saying she wasn’t going to have an appetite, but this was bacon. There was always room for bacon.
Hmm. So good.
Cream was looking up at her with his shaggy head cocked to one side. “What?” Cookie asked him as she continued chewing. “My cholesterol’s just fine.”
He barked. Just a little yip, but it wasn’t like him to be so snappy. She tossed him another small piece of ba
con hoping that would make him feel better. He sniffed at it. He licked it. Then he lifted his head back up and growled.
At the door.
The hair at the back of Cookie’s neck stood up on end. Cream wasn’t the best guard dog in the world, but he always let her know when there was someone nearby that he didn’t recognize. There had once been a new mailman in Widow’s Rest who quit after a few weeks of Cream greeting him at the bakery with an explosive series of barks. At least, that was the excuse he’d given the postmaster. After he came into work drunk. Twice.
Cookie knew better. Cream was a good dog. He was always looking out for her best interests. If he was worried about what was on the other side of the cabin door, then so was she.
Jerry. Where was Jerry?
Without taking her eyes off the door she reached over to the bedside table and picked up her phone. Jerry was the first number in her contacts list and with a few taps of her screen she had a message ready to send to him.
Where are you?
Cream barked again, bouncing on his front paws.
A folded piece of paper came sliding under the door and partway across the cabin floor. Cream trotted over to it, sniffed it, and chuffed his disapproval. Then he went back to eating his bacon.
Staring at him in disbelief, Cookie shook her head. “That’s it? No more barking? No more snarling tough dog?”
He sneezed, and cocked his head, then attacked what was left of his treat.
The paper sat there on the floor, drawing her attention, almost demanding to be picked up. Cookie bent down and took it in her fingers gingerly, as if it might bite her. With one single fold she had it open. In sketchy, block letters, a message was written for her.
STOP SNOOPING AROUND OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU
LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE
Cookie nearly crumpled it up and tossed it in the garbage. No way was anyone going to tell her to stop looking into Joseph’s death. No way was anyone going to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. Not Jerry, not some phantom creep in the hallway. No one. Who would have written her something like this, anyway? There was no signature. The way the letters had been written was masking the author’s handwriting. This was a clue, certainly, but if it didn’t point to anyone then all it really amounted to was a threatening note that could have come from anyone…
Or someone she already suspected.
Jayce had sat in the buffet room with her and told her to stop investigating or she’d regret it. Now this note came sailing into her room telling her the exact same thing.
Oh, that man! Did he really think a piece of paper slipped under her door was going to get her to back off from helping her daughter find Joseph’s murderer? Well, then he was several nuts short of a fruit cake. If anything, this was just going to make her try harder—
She jumped in a very unladylike manner when her pocket buzzed.
Her phone. It was just her phone receiving a text message. Cream looked up at her, smiling with his pink tongue lolling out, bacon crumbs in the fur around his mouth.
“Oh, hush,” she told him, sliding the phone out and opening the text. It was Jerry, answering her back.
Sorry I wasn’t there this morning. Following leads. See you tonight. Dinner?
Cookie felt herself practically beaming. So he wasn’t avoiding her. Not on purpose, anyway.
Can I see you now? she typed back.
Busy. With Captain Abrams. Why?
Oh, no reason, she thought to herself. She only had half a dozen different clues to let him know about and the fact that Jayce was following her around and oh, yeah. They were supposed to be spending this time together, not apart.
But if he was too busy for her…
Someone just left me a threatening note. In the cabin, she decided to tell him. It seemed to be the most important fact of all at the moment.
There was a long pause before anything more came through. When it did, it wasn’t quite the loving boyfriend concern she had been hoping for.
What did you do?
“What did I do?” she repeated out loud. “Oh, just found the suspect and found a connection between him and Joseph and tried to make my daughter feel better about the fact her husband is dead and… and… erngh!”
She nearly threw the phone against the wall, but she felt like that would be far too childish. Besides. She might need this later, if any more notes got slipped under her door.
Before she had a chance to finish typing out exactly what she thought about him and men in general, he texted her again. With a slow breath, she erased her own message—embarrassed at the language she had been using—and read his. He was coming right down. He told her to stay there and wait for him.
“Fine,” she said, sitting down on the bed and glowering at the walls. “But only because I’m fresh out of leads to follow up.”
It was nearly twenty minutes later when Jerry arrived back at the cabin. Cream had eaten another strip of bacon and then climbed up on the bed, hoping for more, but Cookie had already finished the rest of so that she wouldn’t have to worry about her little friend sneaking any more for himself. It was just for his benefit, she told herself, and not because Jayce had interrupted her own breakfast or because she was angry enough to chew nails and the bacon seemed like a better alternative.
Cookie had always had a problem with stress eating. Being a baker and always around food, that had been something of a problem for her. She knew she was carrying a few more pounds than she should be. More than most men liked to see on a woman, anyway, in a world still dominated by Victoria’s Secret models and anorexic magazine ads. Jerry had never complained. In fact, he had made it very clear at the beginning of their relationship that he liked her just the way she was.
So what had changed?
When the door finally opened and it was him, she was about ready to throw a pillow at his head and demand an explanation for the way that he’d been acting. He didn’t give her a chance to do either.
“Where’s the note?”
Not, are you all right. Not, it’s okay Cookie I’m here now. Sighing, she realized she shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up. Instead, she passed the note over to him and scratched behind Cream’s ears while Jerry examined the paper. He held it by the edges, and she realized he was being careful in case there were fingerprints. She felt stupid for not having thought of that herself.
“Not much to this, is there?” he said, turning the page over, and then carefully setting it aside on the bedside table.
Then he knelt down in front of her and threw his arms around her. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
Cookie was so surprised that it took her a moment to return the gesture. She was up and down and all over the place with him. Just when she thought she knew they were heading for a breakup he did something like this and set everything upside down. It was like she was on a roller coaster ride where the track was constantly changing.
“I thought…” she whispered. The words failed her.
“You thought what?” he said, pushing himself up to sit next to her.
She felt herself blushing like a teenaged girl. Like Clarissa when she was around that boyfriend of hers. “I thought you were mad at me for some reason.”
He sighed out a slow breath. “Well, I’m not exactly happy with you.”
And the roller coaster continued.
“Let me explain,” he said, when he saw the way her expression fell. “Do you know what I’ve been doing all morning?”
“No,” she answered tersely, “I don’t. You didn’t even bother telling me you weren’t coming back to the cabin last night. How should I know what you’ve been up to?”
“I’ve been doing my job,” he answered her. “I’ve been using my experience and my skills to try to find out who killed Joseph.”
“Oh? Have you eliminated Madison as a suspect yet?” She didn’t care if that wasn’t fair. The things he had said about Madison earlier still stung.
“Cookie, you know I don�
��t really suspect her. I was just trying to explain how it could look like she was involved, and how we need to avoid having anyone say we were covering up for her. You don’t understand the way these things work—”
“Oh, really? I don’t understand. I see. I’m just some old, dumb broad who isn’t good for anything except baking bread and keeping your bed warm at night, is that it?”
He raised his hands up defensively. “Cookie, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“Do I? Well, I thought I didn’t understand how these things work.”
“I meant, you don’t understand about police investigations.”
“Then how come I’m the one gathering evidence?” she asked, fed up with his condescending tone. “How come I’m the one who’s getting threatened? Hmm? I must be close to something, don’t you think?”
The lines around his eyes tightened. “That’s part of what I was talking about. I found out you went to talk to Jessica last night. That brother of hers wasn’t too happy to find that out, let me tell you. I think he probably left you this note so you would stop bothering his sister.”
“He’s Jessica’s step-brother,” Cookie corrected him, “and I think he left me the note, too. Just not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
“Then why?”
“Because I think he killed Joseph.”
He didn’t say a word while she explained everything she had found out. Jayce’s anger issues. The fact that he had been in prison with Joseph and seemed to know him pretty well no matter how Jayce tried to deny it. Joseph’s checkered past. She even told him about her dead end trying to see video surveillance on the boat, just to show him that she wasn’t some old bitty floundering around with no idea of what she was doing.
When she was done, he kept staring at her. Then he shook his head. “I found out about the security cameras this morning. The captain was going to show the recordings, only there weren’t any recordings to be seen because the computers were all smashed with something heavy. He was furious when he found out. Their insurance carrier is already going to be breathing down his neck after having a murder onboard ship but the entire surveillance system being out violates some law or code or something.”